A Place Where Everything Bleeds Turquoise

During my last few weeks in Paris I was partly occupied from working in Rachel Perlmeter's new film, but on the whole, I found myself with lots of spare time.  I decided to stroll around Cimetière Père Lachaise, without any touristy map, and see what graves I might run into.

The majority of the graves look like elevators, leading down to Hades.  Some of them even have stairs leading down into the earth...frightening.

Various busts and jesuses seemed to be bleeding.

 

Here is a Dumas grave.  This is my french family name, though of course there are many many Dumas families.  I did run into a couple of famous graves - le peintre Gericault and the showgirl Colette. 

 

In conclusion - while this cimetière is quite beautiful, I beg of you, whoever finds themselves in charge, please do not let me spend eternity in an elevator. 

Praised be Euterpe!

Who is Euterpe?
She is one of my eight sisters of greek myth, the muse of Music and sacred poetry. Despite the awesomeness of Euterpe, I admit to being glad that I was named after a muse with a less bizarre name.
June 21st is La Fête de la Musique every year in France.  French streets all over the country are full of people dancing and listening, all getting progressively drunker as they run around celebrating music.  In Paris, the metro lines even stay open all night long, especially for this once-a-year event.
I took a walk from my place to Opera, to the Palais Royale, and eventually found myself at Les Halles.  On this ballade (the french word for walk, and also a music-related word in english, how rad!) I ran into all sorts of crowds and sounds.
 My favorite part about all this was the variety...every single music group was different from the last.  What are the chances that I never heard two bands playing music of the same genre?  Check out these sounds and these funky audiences.

It all starts with the wonderful music show au theatre d'Orange, built by the Romans long long ago.  Here Rosa and I are talking about la fête de la musique.

Second, reggae au jardins du Palais Royale:

 

Third, a classical trio.  This was behind the Pailais Royale and informal.  The three girls singing must have been twelve or thirteen years old.  They were adorable and fabulous.

 Fourth, some electronic DJ-ing

Fifth, two amazing guys, on trumpet and ???

There was more, but I didn't film it all.  The French sure know how to let Euterpe know that her (mythical) discoveries are still appreciated.  :) Merci, maintenant allez-y, écoutez ou jouez de la musique!

Rehearsal pt4: Jaune

 In this scene, Maria plays an old naked tyrant and Vanessa is his servant.  The servant both loves and hates her master, in a pretty creepy way.
In this first clip you see Ella come in to help!

Here is a short section where the tyrant is being fed from a tray, and when he refuses to eat, his servant goes a little crazy. 

Pass me a slice of mime cake, would you?

Today is Poosa's birthday, and I recorded a little mime performance for her.
Have a piece of mime-cake, one and all...(Grandpa, make sure to take a big piece for your 75th, I swear I used mime splenda!)

And here is a little extra something pour toi, Poosa.  This is a many-lensed performance (oh boy, I could write such a long essay about this).  Here is Keith doing the mambo in his office in MN, seen through a camera lens, sent to me in Paris, seen by me through my computer screen...etc, you could go on forever, there are so many layers to this. 

joyeux anniversaire!

Rehearsal pt 3: Côme

This scene is a little more abstract, but very playful, and performed by one of the most talented second year students, Côme.  He gets out of his cardboard box and pulls various things out.  One of my favorite parts is when he puts on a tutu and does some silly-versions of ballet moves.  Enjoy it!

Rehearsal pt 2: Peut-etre

This one is the first part of the show's longest scene.  This is also one of my favorites, because Jeremy and Ko are hilarious! 
Here you will see them showing the moments of bliss and annoyance shared between a couple.  Ko is pregnant and becomes demanding for various delicious foods. Finally she gives birth and, big surprise, the baby is black.  Next, Ko goes about trying to figure out who the father is: "Peut-etre c'est celui la?"  And we have many flashbacks of encounters, but midway through each flashback Ko says "Non, c'est pas lui!" 
Here you have it, the beginning:

Rehearsal pt 1: Body Dream

Here is the first in a series of videos I took during rehearsal.  In this scene, "Body Dream", Cristelle and Margarita are a pair of crazed plastic surgeons, and when Kiaza comes in to get 'the body of his dreams'...they start hacking his body to pieces.  This is one of my favorites because there is so much awesome action-reaction work!

Black and White: our mime show!

Thanks to the beautiful and stylish Anya Z., we have here a little video of my mime scene.  Well, of most of it, excepting the beginning.  This scene is called "Soldat" (or, soldier).  Kiaza Nazeran, from Iran, was my partner.  In this scene, a Major (played by moi) gets his soldier to get him dressed and basically act as his slave.  In the end, the telephone rings and it's the General on the phone!  Suddenly, the Major turns into a frightened whimpering little man, and things have come full circle.  :) Power is relative.  Also, the glare in the video is caused by the stage lights, so my apologees for that.

 

I have also taken wonderful videos of the other scenes, during rehearsals, so you will get to see those soon! 

Blood and Rain

Last weekend was unusually and most exquisitely theatrical.  On Saturday I went to Théâtre du Chatelet to see Sweeney Todd, Sondheim's bloody musical (or as the French call it, un thriller musicale, sur le barbier diabolique de Fleet Street!).  Despite my less expensive seat to the very far right of the theatre, I geekily admit that these were probably some of the best three hours of my life.

 I can only hope that other audience members were as ecstatic as I, and therefore not noticing me as I actually cried from joy (numerous times) and desperately kept myself from singing along.  I enjoyed every single second.  I admit to secretly filming "Worst Pies in London" and "My friends"...but will not put those up.  You can ask to see them, of course! :)

Act II - the Thames seems to have gotten slightly bloodier.

 My eyes were constantly glued to the stage - well, except for the scene when Todd slices the throats of numerous customers.  It's not that I was squeamish about the huge amounts of fake blood spraying everywhere, but more that I wanted to watch the faces of audience members.  Most were wide-eyed (from enjoyment, from horror, from a wide variety of emotions).  I even saw one woman bring a hand up to her mouth and gasp...it was wonderful.

 I cannot even express how talented these actors are (Mrs Lovett especially).  All have exquisite body control, and somehow manage to sing the most beautiful and terrifying songs while moving around.  The singing really was flawless, it was inspiring.

Hooray!  They deserved the ridiculous amount of final bows they were required to do.
As if that wasn't enough for one weekend, I also saw James Thierée's Au Revoir Parapluie the next day.
This was in a smaller, but still gorgeous, theatre called Marigny, right off of les Champs Elysées.

Thierée is an extremely talented dancer/mime/acrobat (and probably musician, he seems to be good at everything).  His troupe performed magic, crawled and dangled from gigantic mop-like structures, wore insect costumes, balanced hay structures on their foreheads...you name it.  Also fabulous.  To see an excerpt of this show, you tube "Thierée Au Revoir Parapluie".  To you non-Frenchers, the title means Goodbye Umbrella.

Pompidou, the Sequel

This time, I took the staircase straight to the Fifth floor (Modern art, as opposed to Contemporary).  Here is some wonderful stuff:

The fifth floor has many large windows surrounding it, where artwork has been placed.  This way, you see Art, you see Sky, you see Paris...c'est parfait.

Harlequino!  Ou, en francais, Arlequin

MASKS!  I always love a mask...but especially these, freaky and giving off an absurd vibe.

Duchamp!  I lovelovelove this.  The placement of the object is just outstanding, as is its beautiful shadow.

Merci, Rodin!

 I decided to go to the Musée Rodin, thanks to my mother mentioning it in an email.  Et bon dieu, I am happy that I did.  The museum itself is in a lovely house, not too overwhelming in size, and full of great statues and castings. 

 The jardin is even more impressive, and also full of magnificent sculptures, like Le Penseur.

I would definitely place this at the top of my "Things to See" list, especially if you are a tourist.  It is much less crowded than something so advertised as the Louvre, and the gardens are the prettiest I have seen yet.

Silence Isn't So Silent

 I have been to Le Théâtre National de Chaillot twice so far.  This place is called a national theatre because it shows works from artists around the globe.  First I saw a Via Katlehong dance group, which was extremely impressive, and most recently I saw Alvis Hermanis' "The Sound of Silence."

I knew I wanted to take my non-french-speaking friend Naomi to the french theatre, but - how to get past the language barrier?  The Sound of Silence seemed like a perfect opportunity, since it is a play without words.  Before seeing this, I was filled with doubt - doesn't a 3 and a half hour play, without ANY speaking in it, sound torturous? 
But, luckily, I trusted my first instinct and ended up being thoroughly amazed.  The actors relied solely on silent communication.  They used their eyes, their hands, their body language, and objects.  The object-play was perfectly thought-out, as was the use of 1960s Simon and Garfunkel tunes.  Each moment in this piece has great impact because of the image created, the silent communication, and the perfect timing of sound/movement/etc.
Really moving!  Hilarious, tragic, bizarre, relatable, simple, complicated, everything I could have asked for.  For those three and a half hours, my eyes were glued to the stage, and not one yawn or sigh escaped my lips.

Still Movement

Statues are rad. Well, I think they are, in any case.
They are real magic, because they are always two things at once.  Both still, and moving.  Both quiet, and loud.  Taking action, and inactive. 
You never see a big marble statue of nothing, or of a person doing nothing, of a person being still.  Statues always portray someone in motion, while they are in the middle of commiting a very important act.
That is why I love statues. 
Here are my favorites at the Louvre:

Dance for the Earth

While in the french countryside for Easter break (near Clelles, in the Alps), I stumbled upon a "Danse Pour La Terre", in which villagers came together to be thankful on Earth Day.  

It starts off with a hushed chanting, which gets progressively more loud and complicated.

People shout out their thankfulness before joining the circle.  Cute!  

Sitting on the grass with beautiful mountains on all sides, children drawing with markers, flowers blooming, the air crisp...there is no better place to spend Earth Day.

I'm (STILL) in a show!

Here are a few more lovely pictures (some of which I am in!) from our Mime/Dance show at le Palais de le Porte Dorée.

Eunil Ko at the very beginning.  She is a real pro at mime sewing!

The girls, being Polish immigrants, and Eric being a captain.

Me, a gossipy Polish immigrant, waiting for her entrance.

My bottom half.  This is for a children's show on Sunday, at the end of which we gave all of the children invisible presents! Aha!

The Palais where all of this happened...not bad, eh?

I am in a show!

It is Springtime in Paris.  When you get out of Metro Porte Dorée, you see this.  Walk a little farther and you are at le Palais, where we perform this weekend.

Studio Magenia is performing at the Cite Nationale de L'Histoire de L'Immigration (CNHI for short).  This spring, or printemps, the CNHI is focusing on polish immigration.  Since Ella, our instructor and the owner/founder of Magenia, is from Poland, this story is close to her heart.
We are basically doing a symbolic dance, with some mime movements.

Here les garcons are rehearsing their opening section, in which they are working hard on ships, and on land in a new country.  You can also see (and especially hear) Ella. 

And this is some romantic dancing, much of it improvisational, in a different room of the building Palais de Porte Dorée.
Obviously you don't see me in these sections, since I do not have the super power of Filming Myself While Performing.

Les Affaires Sont Les Affaires

The second Comedie Francaise show I went to was Les Affares Sont Les Affaires, a comedy by Octab Mirbeau.
I use 'comedy' losely...it's meant to be a comedy, and although it has its funny moments, I found it to be more dramatic and disturbing.
This was the story of Isidore Lechat, a corrupt and possibly entirely insane (and evil) man.  He has acquired wealth by exploiting the poor, and in this play, he loses everything in one day - his son and daughter, and his lands.
I found it very dark, and moving, especially in the second act.
Listen to a heated Act II argument between Lechat, his employee Lucien, and his daughter Germaine.

les Jardins de Seville

Early April in Seville can feel like a California summer.
I was lucky on this trip, for many reasons: 1) Seeing my dear friend Naomi. 2) The orange trees were in bloom, so I was surrounded by the most perfect scent. 3) My eyes were more than constantly satisfied by the bright colors and numerous palace gardens.
See for yourself (and wish you were there)

Close your eyes, and smell the oranges.

The mistress' bath house.

Limon!

Bridges, mosaics, agua...All is well.

Musicians under the Spanish Sun

Parc Güell exists, once again, thanks to our favorite Catalan architect - Antoni Gaudi.  This parc is full of vendors, tourists, diagonally-leaning pillars, AND...musicians. 
These musicians are out of the ordinary: they are talented, they play wonderfully BIZARRE instruments, and they are extremely beautiful people, physically.  Pretty sounds played by pretty people.

.

 
Awesome.  And the same guy, from a closer angle.

 And lastly, this guy in a cave-like area.  I don't know what he's playing, but it's wonderful (and so is his smile, when you give him some euros or centimes).

GaudiLand

Thanks to Antoni Gaudi's insanely innovative and bizarre architecture, visiting Barcelona is like walking through a Guillermo del Toro movie set - everything is beautiful, eerie, incredible, fantastical.  To me, his buildings are so strange and differently beautiful that, when I look at them, I am filled with confusion and disbelief.
Get ready for a torrent of photographs here, because I could not stop click-clicking away...

 Not just any old apartment building.
.

 Park Guell

 y Park Guell

y one more de Park Guell.
Now, all of the following pictures are of la Sagrada Familia.  It is so overwhelming that it deserves many pictures.
First, the outside:

Doesn't this look like leaves, or earth,from far away? Actually, here I am looking up at the archway, and this is all carved and enormous.  Try to pick out people, creatures...you can even spot some stained glass if you look very hard.

And now, look at the inside (!!!!!!!!!!!!)

It is so full of light...you feel more outdoors when you are in this building than when you are out of it. It is like being in a vast elvin forest, full of tall, thin, white trees and bright sunlight. It also feels like being in a huge but elegant skeleton.